


The Final Chapter

by samothrace



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 03:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10653546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samothrace/pseuds/samothrace
Summary: Every story comes to an end, but new ones start when the sun rises. Set on the final episode of Broadchurch, trying to imagine how will be the last scene.





	The Final Chapter

The truth was made of an unknown material. Dense, it was able to fill gaps with an incalculable fast, like waters around a boat in a few minutes. Watching the truth fit into the unexplained chants, giving unexpected answers, could rise as an act of recommencement: put each fact on a shelf and close as doubts. However, no one ever said that a truth continued to live a silent, pulsing life, and that nothing was so easily explained to bring, finally, comfort.  


Ellie knew that well. She had learned to live with the truth rather than the illusion she had lived through for years. Trish's pain was her pain as well, for to a certain extent, she knew that every effort to rearrange one's life, her spirit, and her body depended on a great deal of patience in living with a truth.

  
After the resolution of the case, the police station was presented as a frozen place, although the orange light was touching the gray furniture. It seemed that a whole pile of paperwork, a bureaucracy, and a problem to reach the solution lay before her and Hardy as a time preserved in abandoning everything. In a few hours, that which was a unique reality of the two, day and night, was a strange past. It was possible to touch him, but to feel that it was growing old.

  
Noticing that gave Ellie a farewell sense that hit every part of her body. She was not sure why she wanted to cry or how to explain that anguish. It was a weight that involved the heart, for all the women she knew, and even for the unknown of her future.  
This feeling is prolonged until the dawn. And in fact, it was explained, when Hardy said he was leaving. Again, he had fulfilled a penance, or was accustomed to believing that he should fulfill one. The two sitting on the stairs were different from their versions three years ago. A prospect of saying goodbye was no longer so easy to accept. Ellie shrank back, wanted to protect herself from any fact she could enter. She did not want answers to a dense weight that carried and expanded along with time.

 

********  


Hardy saw doubts expanding unexpectedly. He thought that Broadchurch, after all, was his place. It was Daisy's fresh start and now she needed to leave. Avoiding to answer the main question about what his life would be like, if his daughter had to move on, has been as stupid as it is not preparing for catastrophes already planned and confirmed. He prefered blindness in the end, and now everything he saw was so intense it hurt.

  
The last time he left Broadchurch was easy, because he had a prospect of a new life with Daisy, of recovering what he had lost. Now, seeing Daisy at the door of the house with a suitcase, he could feel taste of melancholy. He was proud of his daughter, seeing that she had gotten over her problems and moved on, but there was a little of his selfishness in wanting to follow her, to let her decide for him.

-Dad, will you be okay?

  
-Of course, sweetheart.

  
-Have you decided to stay? You should stay.

  
Hardy was silent. Daisy rolled her eyes, just like her father, and even the angry tone with which she replied made him almost giggle.

  
-You should stop doing that. Just going from town to town. You know you'll always have me, but you have to decide for yourself. Here you have Ellie. Did you not say that here was a fresh start for you? Why escape, then? Accept soon, dad - Daisy said impatiently.

  
Hardy took a deep breath.

  
-I don’t know if my place is here ...

  
-Dad, it’no use expecting a place to be right if you do nothing for yourself. You told me that I should stop going after you and mom, decide for my future. What are you doing? Running away? - Daisy paused and sighed. - Look, I ... I just want you to be okay. I always feel guilty for not being here when you were almost dying.

  
-Darling, it was my fault, I told you, you don’t have to…

  
-... you always do this, take all the blame. But you know, every time I think about the time you were alone, I think there was a time when you were not alone, that when you were almost dying Ellie was here with you. I'd rather walk away knowing you've finally realized that Broadchurch is your place. Than to insist once more on your past, to always be choosing the case instead of you.

  
Hardy did not know what to say.

  
-You promise you'll think? Think about what you're going to do?

  
-I promise, Daisy.

  
The two hugged each other tightly. Hardy helped Daisy pick up her bag, and for a moment he stopped to watch his daughter's hair flutter in the wind he'd learned to accept as a familiar breeze.  
  
*****

  
Ellie and Hardy were once again on the bench in front of the cliffs. The same bench  where they were silent as Ellie's world fell. And now, the feeling was that much had been rebuilt differently and even stronger. However, there was still a missing piece to justify the whole structure.

  
They both chose silence again. It seemed to be the most comfortable. But this time it was possible to feel the sun weighing heavily. And the questions too.

  
-Are you sure you're leaving? To where?

  
-Still don’t know.

  
Hardy stared at his feet and looked exhausted. Far from all the versions Ellie had known. And that irritated her.

  
-I don’t believe that even though you have chosen to return, now you just walk away again. How long will you keep doing this? Here was a fresh start for Daisy and it may be for you. It's not possible that you hate Broadchurch so much.

  
-I don’t hate it.

-So what's your problem, Hardy? Stop doing that! Sometimes you annoy me so much!

  
Hardy looked confused at Ellie. He didn’t understand why she was so nervous. The last time, he remembered the sweet look she'd looked at him before walking out the door. And now it was this tension eroding everything inside him.

  
-Why are you screaming?

  
-Why? You're always doing this!

  
-If I irritate you, I should go.

  
-Oh, for God's sake, don’t be a twat about it - Ellie paused. She couldn’t even remember standing up. And neither of an urgency to cry - It's that ... I imagine you alone in a flat. Without anyone. Surely you won’t send me any messages. And you’ll basically disintegrate in this flat or become part of it, since you never make the slightest effort to talk to anyone and ... what kind of life are you going to have?

  
Hardy couldn’t bear to face Ellie. This image was just what he had always seen, what he had experienced in the Sandbrook’case, and it was his nightmare.

  
-I'll be fine.

  
-You won’t, no. You know you won’t.

  
They were both silent. Hardy felt he needed to say something, explain everything, as if he could solve his life if he presented every irrefutable argument. But he did not even know where to start, and he denied seeing the full picture and the answer to his case.

  
-Alec ... I know exactly what you're doing. I thought of living in Devon, anywhere but Broadchurch. But I found out that everything I carried would go with me. And it was my right to stay here. It was an act of resistance.

  
-Of course, it wasn’t you who should leave.

  
-I know, what I'm trying to say, if you're going to listen to me, is that there's no point in thinking that you're going to be able to build a life somewhere else, and make it a utopia. You've run too far, you've punished yourself so much - Ellie came over and couldn’t help the tears in her eyes.

  
-Look, I ... I can’t stay.

  
-Why not?

  
Hardy didn’t answer. Then Ellie sighed resignedly, trying to accept.

  
-So this is goodbye?

  
Hardy nodded. Ellie offered her hand and regretted it, for Hardy noticed that she was shaking. And again he answered silently, for his throat ached and he couldn't make any mention of speaking. Ellie looked straight into Hardy's eyes and didn’t know if she could let him go this time.

When Ellie started to pull away, Hardy awoke from his lethargy. Everything was a sum of the dense heat coming down from the heavens, the orange from Ellie's coat and the touch of her hand. There were so many answers in her eyes that Hardy wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. He took a few steps and called for her. Ellie came back with a look of questioning and even hope, now he could read much more. Or it was the desperation to expect only a gesture.

  
-Ellie, I ...

  
-Alec, I don’t want you to go. I hate to say it ... but ... I can’t lose you - Ellie's voice trailed off, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  
-Look, I ... I don’t either. I'm lousy with ...

  
-With people? - Ellie said, laughing through tears.

-Yes. But I never told you ... you really are all that I have. And ... maybe I have to leave because ...

  
-Because?

  
-Because I ... I love you - Hardy paused and knew that Ellie's response would be a shocked facial expression - And ... it's okay you don’t feel the same, I ... I was so lucky to have your friendship and ...I just want you to be happy, really.  


Ellie's silence despaired Hardy. He knew that speaking those words could destroy everything they had built, and at the same time it hurt to think that the purest sentiment he had in the midst of such suffering could cause such destruction.

  
Ellie was in shock. And angry. Because he had never given a signal to let her expect that moment. And at the same time, she felt a certain pride of him. To say something so sincere, and to take that step, it was not the Hardy she had seen all this time torturing himself with penances. Her first reflex was to retreat. It was no longer safe territory. She had never imagined saying those words again. But with Hardy it was always safe. The two built something she'd always denied naming in the midst of the storms. And now, when the sea finally let them both think quietly, there was really nowhere to run. And she didn’t want to run away. Because it would mean leaving him alone.

  
-Please, say something, anything - Hardy was staring at her with a piercing stare.

  
-You ... never gave me a signal. Anything.

  
Hardy looked confused.

  
-And you wanted one?

  
-At least not to feel so shocked.

  
-That’s all right, Ellie, you don’t have to tell me anything. You don’t owe me anything, okay? I just ... wanted you to know that to feel this, when I thought I'd never feel anything before I died ... - Hardy couldn’t go on, bit his lip trying to control any trace of crying, and then fell silent.  


The walls finally began to crumble. Ellie said "I love you" with almost mechanical ease for Joe. It was easy to say because she had before her all the evidence that she could have a quiet and happy life with him. Then came the chaos and the pain. But now it was hard to say those words to Hardy because they didn’t seem to account for everything she painfully felt. Realizing this, instead of making her afraid, seemed to calm her down. And at the same time, they seemed like the ideal words, for somehow those three would close the hours and hours she would need to point out everything she had not said before and lived with him.  


It was a step she gave with great fear. And the embrace between them was mutual, as if they were finally no longer two people. Now they were just one under the sun that sheltered them. Ellie turned to look at Alec and said quietly:

  
-I ... I'm so fucking scared, but ... I think I feel the same - Ellie swallowed as Alec wiped a tear from her cheek. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and opened them, saying those same three words that then sounded like the one beautiful truth with which Ellie and Alec could easily live.

 


End file.
